Seattle arts nonprofit gets record $5 million donation

Between federal grant cancellations, strained finances and budget deficits, the mood at staff meetings for Seattle performing arts organization On the Boards hasn’t often been celebratory the last few years.

But on Wednesday morning, Executive Director Megan Kiskaddon will give her staff some exceptional news: The nonprofit is receiving a $5 million donation from prominent arts patron Shari D. Behnke.

The gift is the largest in the organization’s nearly five-decade history, and likely one of the largest unrestricted donations to a Seattle arts nonprofit of this size in recent years.

A gift at this scale — more than double the organization’s annual budget of about $1.8 million — would be “incredibly transformative” for an organization of this size, said Jackson Cooper, a fundraising and nonprofit expert.

At a time when both the arts and nonprofit sectors are in a state of flux, the funds — which come with no strings attached — allow On the Boards to stabilize financially, Kiskaddon said.

Kiskaddon said she burst into tears when Behnke called with the news about six weeks ago. After 2 ½ years of leading the organization through postpandemic survival mode, relief reverberated through her body.

“It gives us the gift of time,” she said. “The gift of being able to breathe.”

Behnke is making the donation in memory of her late husband, longtime local arts patron John S. Behnke, who died earlier this year. John Behnke — descending from one of Seattle’s most noted philanthropic families — served on the board of directors of On the Boards for 30 years and helped oversee the move to its current Uptown home, the Behnke Center for Contemporary Performance. There, On the Boards shows contemporary dance, theater and performance works from local, national and international performers.

“John adored the organization and worked tirelessly on their behalf for many, many years,” Shari Behnke said last week. “After John died … I really wanted to make sure that On the Boards wasn’t going to disappear.”

The gift is the largest one-time donation that Behnke has ever given, she said. She hopes it inspires others.

“I have told a few of my friends that I think it’s time that we open the floodgates,” she said, “and just get as much money out there as we can.”

No strings attached

Not all donations — or their size and origins — are publicly disclosed. But it is certain that a gift of this magnitude is rare for an organization of On the Board’s size; $5 million is more than tenfold what the organization typically brings in annually via private contributions, public tax records show.

And even for major organizations, lump-sum multimillion-dollar gifts happen infrequently.

They’re often for specific goals, like major renovations or building projects (such as the revamped Seattle waterfront or Benaroya Hall renovations); conservation and programs for donated art collections (like ones received by the Seattle Art Museum in recent years); or commissioning new works (like the Friday Foundation’s $9 million donation to nine Seattle arts organizations in 2020).

But gifts of this magnitude without strings attached remain few and far between.

An anonymous donor, “Suzanne,” bequeathed just under $10 million to Seattle radio station KEXP in 2018; billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated upward of $2 million in unrestricted funds to Seattle’s Wing Luke Museum and arts education nonprofit Arts Corps in 2021 and 2024; and Allen Family Philanthropies has given $30 million in unrestricted grants to Washington state cultural organizations in the last three years, limited to $25,000 per organization, as well as more than $9 million to eight downtown Seattle arts organizations.

For Behnke, the decision to donate without restrictions was a no-brainer.

“Knowing our current world that we’re living in, and watching the demise of our government, our nonprofit world, the art world — all of it being under attack — I just felt like giving a gift that had absolutely no conditions,” Behnke said, “ … felt like something we should all be doing.”

Kiskaddon said the money will go into On the Boards’ reserve fund. Much like an endowment, the funds will be invested, with the goal of only using the surplus investment income over the years. (On the Boards has been using its reserves and has been operating at a deficit since 2017, except for one year.)

But unlike many donor-restricted endowments, this nest egg could be used at any time for whatever purpose the organization sees fit.

But Cooper, the nonprofit expert and author, said that a major donation can sometimes be a double-edged sword, speaking generally. It can lead other donors to scale back their support.

“At the outset, people are going to think: ‘Well, this organization is fine, we don’t need to donate. What’s my $25 gift going to do?’” he said.

Kiskaddon acknowledged the possibility. And while $5 million is a lot of money, she stressed she’d use the funding to stabilize the organization, invest in strategic planning ahead of its 50th anniversary and create compelling programming that will draw people for years to come.

“Now we’re not focusing on pure survival,” she said. “Now the conversation is: We’re obviously going to exist, what cool things do we get to do?”